It is common for the vibrations set up in an implement by impact to sting the wielder's hands. This stinging can lead to flinching, an altered grip, and other phenomena which adversely affect a player's performance.
The vibrations can also cause serious injury. For example, the stiff graphite and other high tech handles of modern tennis rackets vibrate at high frequencies, and the result is a higher incidence of debilitating tennis elbow.
Others have attempted to solve the problems attributable to impact-generated vibrations with vibration dampers in or attached to the handle of an implement, see U.S. Pat. No. 3,941,380 issued Mar. 2, 1976 to Lacoste. One drawback of this prior art approach is that the feel of the implement upon impact is deader. This dead feel adversely affects the wielder's performance. Another drawback of this prior art approach to offsetting the effect of impact-generated vibrations is that they act too slowly, and the damage is done before the impact is damped.